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I meant to do my work today

-but a brown bird sang in the apple tree,

and a butterfly flitted across the field,

and all the leaves were calling me.

And the wind went sighing over the land

tossing the grasses to and fro,

and a rainbow held out its shining hand

-so what could I do but laugh and go?

~ Richard LeGallienne

"The Hummingbird"

The sunlight speaks, and its voice is a bird:

It glimmers half-guessed, half-seen, half-heard,

Above the flowerbed, over the lawn….

A flashing dip, and it is gone,

And all it lends to the eye is this-

A sunbeam giving the air a kiss.

-Harry Kemp

from "The Hummingbird"

ca. 1920

Listen | 014

I threw a snowball across the backyard.

My dog ran after it to bring it back.

It broke as it fell, scattering snow over snow.

She stood confused, seeing and smelling nothing.

She searched in widening circles until I called her.

She looked at me and said as clearly in silence

as if she had spoken,

I know it’s here, I’ll find it,

went back to the center and started the circles again.

I called her two more times before she came

slowly, stopping once to look back.

That was this morning. I’m sure that she’s forgotten.

I’ve had some trouble putting it out my mind.

By Miller Williams

THE CINNAMON PEELER

If I were a cinnamon peeler

I would ride your bed

and leave the yellow bark dust

on your pillow.

Your breasts and shoulders would reek

you could never walk through markets

without the profession of my fingers

floating over you. The blind would

stumble certain of whom they approached

though you might bathe

under rain gutters, monsoon.

Here on the upper thigh

at this smooth pasture

neighbour to your hair

or the crease

that cuts your back. This ankle.

You will be known among strangers

as the cinnamon peeler's wife.

I could hardly glance at you

before marriage

never touch you

- your keen nosed mother, your rough brothers.

I buried my hands

in saffron, disguised them

over smoking tar,

helped the honey gatherers . . .

When we swam once

I touched you in water

and our bodies remained free,

you could hold me and be blind of smell.

You climbed the bank and said

                   this is how you touch other women

the grass cutter's wife, the lime burner's daughter.

And you searched your arms

for the missing perfume

                                       and knew

                what good is it

to be the lime burner's daughter

left with no trace

as if not spoken to in the act of love

as if wounded without the pleasure of a scar.

You touched

your belly to my hands

in the dry air and said

I am the cinnamon

peeler's wife. Smell me.

- Michael Ondaatje

What iron will and fortitude

flutters inside so small a

beating heart? What genetic seed

of DNA buried deep within, flies

so far and wide? Grow strong and

brave, darling Tesh, under the

all encompassing wings while

there is yet time to connect the

dots, to chart a straight line.

Then launch yourself from the

old pine tree and flying to every

flower in the garden, share the

sweet nectar of life.

Philip Martz

"Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time."

Author and monk Thomas Merton (1915-1968)

The bitterness of poor quality lingers long after the sweetness of low price has faded.

What you put into life, you also get out of it.

“Living well is the best revenge”  -  George Herbert – theologian and poet

The greatest risk is not taking one.

If you don’t have time to do it right the first time - you don’t have time to do it twice.

"That which you persist in doing becomes easier, not that the nature of the thing has changed but that your power to do has increased." Thoreau

If we cannot find contentment inside ourselves, it is useless to seek it elsewhere.

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.                Anais Nin

There is no reason to look back, you're not headed that way.